White Salmon, WA
How exposed is White Salmon to wildfire?
White Salmon sits at the 97th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 1,403 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts White Salmon at the 97th percentile, close to its 97th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
1,403 buildings are counted in White Salmon, and 83.9% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 16.1% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
How White Salmon compares
White Salmon scores 97th nationally and 94th within Washington — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, White Salmon ranks 867 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,617 by building count (1 is largest). Within Washington alone, it ranks 41 of 628 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Washington on its state page.
White Salmon and the insurance market
White Salmon's 97th-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in White Salmon (83.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where White Salmon's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,403 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for White Salmon. The exposure-zones guide covers what White Salmon's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.